What is AS9100:2016 Rev D?

Pretty much everyone in industry at some level have heard of ISO 9001, it is the world's benchmark for Quality Management Systems, not as many however have heard of AS9100D or AS9100:2016 Rev D to give it it's full title. So, what exactly is it and why talk about it alongside ISO9001?

AS9100D is the Quality Management Systems - Requirements for Aviation, Space, and Defence Organisations, it is the aerospace counterpart to ISO9001 quality management systems. Moreover, AS9100D is actually built on top of ISO9001:2015, think of it as ISO9001:2015+.

The other important difference is that AS9100:2016 Rev is not certified by ISO (International Standards Organisation), it is certified and maintained by the Aerospace division of SAE International and the International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG).

Think about it a bit like this

What are the AS9100D & ISO9001:2015 differences?

For a start you will be pleased to know that all of the AS9100D changes are additional requirements so if you already have an ISO9001:2015 certification it's fairly straightforward to transition up to the AS9100D requirements. It is also useful that the team who wrote the AS9100:2016 Rev D Quality Management Systems - Requirements for Aviation, Space, and Defence Organisations highlighted all of their additions in bold italic so you can easily find them.

There are a few additional requirements scattered through the Clause 4 – Context of the Organisation and Clause 5 Leadership but the real changes happen, as you can imagine in the critical areas of the later clauses. With significant changes in Clause 8 for operations, some in Clause 9 Performance Evaluation and a bit in clause 10 – Improvements.

Clause 8.1 has 4 additional new sub clauses:

• 8.1.1 Operational Risk Management
• 8.1.2 Configuration Management
• 8.1.3 Product Safety
• 8.1.4 Prevention of Counterfeit Parts

Other areas the changes are largely extensions of additional requirements, but some areas do have additional sub clauses added, specifically:

• 8.3.4Design and development controls
• 8.4.1General
• 8.5.1Control of production and service provision

You can download a full copy of a side-by-side comparison of ISO9001:2015 and AS9100D below.

AS9100D VS ISO9100:2015 Comparison Matrix